Here’s the bike news from near and far that caught our eyes in the last week:

— Everybody’s talking about this amazing video of a Wall Street Journal editorial board member telling us what she really feels about bikesharing in New York City. Definitely worth waiting through a 15-second Honda or Chevron ad to see some of this hard-hitting journalism:

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100 Comments

Peter de GarmoJune 3, 2013 at 10:34 am

Hopefully Occupy NY will pick up on this: @ 1.41 mins the WSJ interviewer says that “citibank” racks prevent the NYFD from accessing the subway system.

When faced with the statistic that no pedestrian has been killed by a cyclist in the city (though 148 were in 2012 alone), Dorothy Rabinowitz still responds to stay that people riding on the sidewalk is the “most important danger in the city.” -sigh- Really?

I took me a few tries to parse you statement the way it written. I think your Parentheses is intended to clarify that although 148 pedestrians were killed in accidents on NYC streets in 2012, the were all killed by automobiles and none were killed by cyclists.

HA! If Dorothy Rabinowitz “represents most of New York City” as she claims, we are all in trouble. She is so concerned about those racks blighting her beloved historic neighborhoods and blocks, and she is so worried about the safety of those poor pedestrians who have been overtaken by the “all-powerful bike lobby…” That is some of the most absurd “reporting” I have heard since my radio accidentally landed on Rush Limbaugh. 1/2 truths, fear mongering, convenient omissions, ignoring facts, and anecdotal hyperbole. Amazing. She was so fast to criticize the Mayor for having wealth she forgot to check her own situation. Not impressive.

That’s a true believer there.
I feel dirty just having listened to it; maybe if I listen to Rush for a minute or two this weird feeling of contamination mixed with rage with be replaced with just plain rage.
And maybe pity for the state of the human race.

I believe I’m the country’s biggest bike-share hater; after all, it’s my goal to end bike sharing in our country, especially CitiBike. But, Dorothy Rabinowitz’s assessment of bicycling in NYC is totally out of line.

Basically, her stance is that scofflaw bicyclists break the rules of the road, therefore, bicycling is bad. Instead of being against bicycling, why doesn’t she complain to the NYPD for not enforcing the rules of the road when the scofflaw bicyclists break them? Simply, illogical!

Who’s to say that long-term cyclists won’t use bike share? If people live in a inner core where the bike share is convenient for them, they can use it the same way many people use Car2Go now. And how is getting people to try out biking before buying their own bike not a great way to create new cyclists?

Bikesnob NYC has a yearly membership. I keep a bike out there for my visits, and even though I have a bike, I’m planning to use citibike (and not just out of curiosity) because it is easier to use there bikes than to bring my own into the city. Taking my bike into Manhattan limits my use of the LIRR, restricts me to non-peak subway trips, and is a pain to get in and out of subway stations, or through Penn Station. And I can’t take my bike on a bus at all. With Citibike I can take the LIRR into Penn on a peak train (with no worries about space available for bike or who is enforcing what rules today) and pick up citibike to go where I want. I leave myself flexible to take any bus or subway or LIRR train out of the city. I can dock the bike and walk 20 or 30 blocks exploring and don’t have to go retrieve my bike. If I go into the city with wife and kids I can take off on a citibike for my own activities while they are in a museum.

If I’m taking a day for bike riding, I’ll ride my own bike, but if I’m going in for a day of “city life” I’ll be using citibike.

I have friends riding the citibikes now, and so far no problems. In my case, bike availability is unlikely to be a problem I think. I am there on recreation time. If the docking station is empty and there is another close by I might walk a few blocks, or I’ll grab a spot on the sidewalk and wait for a bike to show up. Generally I’ll be in the area of what I will expect are going to be the busiest docking stations in the system. I will be pleasantly surprised if I have to wait long for a bike to show up…. and I can alway walk or take a subway. That’s New York. You have to roll with it, consider alternatives etc. I fully expect that citibike is going to be generally more reliable for trip time and convenience than subways or busses or cabs. I could be wrong…. but I doubt it. I’ll see when I get there. I’ll be much happier most of the time waiting a good while for a bike vs. standing on a subway platform.

Have you used bikeshare anywhere? Or is this just a baseless fear and complaint?
They have procedures in place for the complaints you have (ie. if the rack is full, you put in your card and get another 15 mins.)

While many of us have issues with corporate banking, Wall street corruption,etc.etc….
I believe “anon’s1223345566” criticism of the citibike share program lies more in the realm of, (how is it the French say..?) la folie des grandeurs.

Yet you’ve failed to yet prove that that is a major problem (beyond anecdotaly) at ANY bikeshare system in the US! Certainly was not a problem for me during my recent trip to Minneapolis, when I used NiceBike.
So your argument is based on the kiosks, maybe, possibly, there’s a chance they are full?

It seems clear from your comments that you made up your opinion regarding bikeshare from a gut feeling and now you’re retroactively rationalizing against it. We now know from successful roll-outs that bikeshare increases the safety in numbers effect, acts as a gateway to lifestyle cycling, increases calls for sympathetic bicycle infrastructure and supplements daily cycling. (http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/18949/) I am a daily bicycle commuter, own a bike and I also supplement my riding with a bikeshare membership. I use it for one-way and multimodal trips, which is exactly how it’s structured to be used. I also have it as a backup when my bike is in the shop. It’s a joy when traveling without a bike and I only wish I could use my Capital Bikeshare token universally in any city with Alta instead of using the clumsy credit card kiosks.

Not everyone uses the bicycle as a tool in the same way that you do. For my purposes, bikeshare is a bargain value to supplement my regular bicycle and I will gladly pay my fair share more for Alta to provide fair wages.

I watched the NY video also and… I simply wonder where does her frustration and anger come from? I mean, distill it down, what is at the core of it? Does she feel her way of life is threatened? What is it?

The “progressives” represent the slipping away of her generation’s power in the mayoral government would be my take on her attitude.

I confess I didn’t watch it very long (didn’t see the point), but the irony I found entertaining was the comment on fire engines not being able to access subway stations due to bike racks taking space. Yeah, the gridlocked auto traffic doesn’t impede emergency response though!

I’m not so sure. I can see her point a little in areas like one corner of Greenwich Village, and a couple of parts of Williamsburg and Redhook – small areas of 8 or 10 blocks at most, But NYC is largely one Giant billboard. There are ads for all kinds of things everywhere. Ads on benches, busses, trucks, sides of buildings, pay phones, news stands, the ubiquitous boxes of free news papers and advertising for misc, There are very very few blocks in the area Citibike is going that don’t have a fairly significant advertising impact already. Even on the most pristine historic streets, as Streetsblog have documented, there are Plumbers vans, flower vans, and all sorts of commercial vehicles parked along those streets that are plastered with advertising. Although citibike is new in that the station is fixed there. I have a little sympathy to the advertising complain, but not very much.

It’s not the advertising, it’s the aesthetic (primarily, color) of the bike that disrupts the visual aesthetic of these historic places, etc. And, this is magnified by the fact that the docking stations are fixed so the bikes are parked at the same place all the time. All those other vehicles you mentioned are parked temporarily.

i think if you introduce several thousand units of a bright blue corporate logo into an area of only a few square miles, you have a different situation than what you are describing. i am not worried (as rabinowitz pretends to be) about some “pristine” landscape, i am objecting to the visual bombardment with one particular brand. citibank, no less, one of the prime architects of our current malaise.

talk about tone deaf. there are still tens of millions of long-term unemployed, underemployed, and no longer lookings. and real wages have been falling since the beginning of corporate-scum induced depression.

This is funny… Everyone here,(who claim to love bikes) are debating about visuals of primary blue bikes in NYC, and its impact on aesthetics ,… all the while forgetting, that for 75 years +… NYC has had schools of primary yellow motorized boxes clogging its pores.

Because as I said, advertising is plastered all over everything in NYC. With the possible but dubious exception of a few specific blocks and maybe two dozen out of the 600 stations the argument is absurd.

It’s not the advertising, it’s the aesthetic (primarily, color) of the bike that disrupts the visual aesthetic of these historic places, etc. And, this is magnified by the fact that the docking stations are fixed so the bikes are parked at the same place all the time. All those other vehicles you mentioned are parked temporarily.

This Valentines Day brought to you by Hallmark & De Beers:“Because we know how to express your feelings better than you do. No matter what you do if you don’t buy our products she’ll leave you.
No pressure.”

Again, I’m a bit ambivalent on the very few stations in these quieter neighborhoods. I can somewhat see the point of the objection for those few stations. But… yes the cars are ‘temporarily’ parked there, but there is almost never a single empty spot! There is always some car parked there and the ones there often stay for days at a time. And finally, I don’t see how the bright blue citibike signs are really that much more disturbing that a bright blue, bright red, or bright yellow car, or a commercial van with advertising on it. I also see the difference, the cars aren’t permanent in the same sense as the bike station, BUT there is car parking there permanently and it is perpetually full and I totally fail to see what makes the parked cars (in situ) more attractive that a citibike station and a citibike station more offensive than the average collection of cars parked on the streets of NY even in good neighborhoods.

The bikes/stations are fixed at their locations, they are always at the same spot, so they eventually become an eyesore.

Most non-commercial vehicles are neutral colored, commercial vehicles are typically bright colored. While these vehicles may fill up all the parking spots, they are not at the same spot, so it doesn’t become an eyesore over time.

Also, people are reasonable, they know the commercial vehicles need to be parked at their locations so a service can be performed.

See the interviewer’s expression, how she seems to regard Rabinowitz as a cute little old thing. Seems to be no journalism going on here, just an open mic for a very tired lines of propaganda, plus some new ones: “THE BIKE LOBBY IS ALL-POWERFUL!”

1 a brompton costs $1400 new. (even decent used Dahon is probably $200 min in PDX and more in NYC) 2) a folder can be stolen and has to be locked and looked after, 3) I don’t have to carry Citibike around with me at all. 4) folders are still a bit of hastle when the trains and busses are crowded, but doable, like strollers etc. NOTE: BikeSnobNYC owns a folder and he STILL is an annual member of CitiBike.

The great advantage of citibike for me is I DON”T have to have it with me. Citibike is there for me to use, I don’t have to worry about it at all until I want it or need it.

For what it’s worth, my NYC bike is a kind of bar bike, a converted rigid mountain bike with slicks and risers. It is theft resistant by virtue of being ugly and uncool. It functions perfectly for when I actually want to be focused on having my bike. Citibike is for days when I’m doing stuff, and it happens to be a very convenient way to get from point A to point B at a particular time. A folder would reduce some of the in and out of the city logistics riding the subways, but I’d still be stuck either carrying the bike everywhere or securely locking it in one place I may not really need to come back to except to retrieve the bike.

I’ve been dealing for more than a decade with deciding on a particular day whether to take my bike into the city or not. Not having the bike, once I experienced how fast and convenient trips are by bike in Manhattan and inner Brooklyn and Queens, makes me feel trapped by slow walking or waiting for subways, and cross town busses. Taking my bike is great when I am primarily interested in riding and only secondarily being “in the city.” But it becomes a pain when I lock the bike up and then roam around. I constantly find myself having to walk 4 or 8 block or more back to where I locked my bike. And locking is a pain itself and carrying the lock. To me, I already KNOW that Citibike provides me a new option that is potentially hugely convenient for what I do in the city.

I know you say this winkingly, but it’s elitist and it’s crap. The safety in numbers effect doesn’t care if you’re a “real” cyclist. Unfortunately, there is a large pool of people who have a very low tolerence for inconvenience — which is why helmet laws are such failures because the mere absence of wind-blowing-through-hair is enough to dissuade a large proportion of would-be cyclists.

Yeah, they’re wimps. I don’t care. I want them all on bikes because I want safer streets.

Why would I want to bother with renting a folding bike at a bike shop (for 4-6 times the cost) and have to deal with locks or lugging the thing around? Not to mention finding said bike shop, and returning the bike to that same shop.

This is not a solution.

And I’ve flown with my bike to 6 continents, and probably 350,000 miles, so even though you’re trying to be cute, don’t get all high and mighty.

Having flown with bikes in the past and knowing that it costs around $100 extra each way – Sign . . me . . up!

Please, oh please . . . tell me what else to do to be a “real cyclist”! How do I join your club? How may I be as special as all those who feel the need call themselves “cyclist”? While you’re at it, ya got any other identities for sale?

Maybe transportation isn’t really about you and your identity. Maybe it’s just about getting people to destinations effectively. Bike Share seems to do that.

Have giant-sized secure indoor bike parking near/at all the major train/subway/bus stops where people arrive from outside the inner core. Have mini-sized secure indoor bike parking scattered about in the inner core, which can be done in collaboration with the car parking people/public storage people/people-who-have-space.

– Leave your beat up bike at the giant-sized secure indoor bike park when you leave the inner core.
– Pick up your beat up bike at the giant-sized secure indoor bike park when you’re in the inner core.
– Lock your bike to any bike rack available when you reach your destination(s) in the inner core. (No one is going to steal it anyways because you made it into a pos)
– Don’t want to deal with your bike while in the inner core? Drop it off at a mini-sized secure indoor park.

Having REAL bicycling infrastructure would not only solve your particular bike usage scenario, it would solve other people’s bike usage scenarios as well.

Or have bikeshare, and not force people to use/own 2 bikes for a quick ride across town.

I’m really not understanding your disdain for bikeshare. You don’t like it fine, don’t use it. Why can’t other people use it and how is it harming you? It’s privately funded, not taking away from other projects.

People who actually have spent enough time in Manhattan to know just what a pain Subways and Buses are, how much walking you end up doing, and even what a pain cabs are in addition to being expensive can actually understand how convenient it will be to pick up a bike and be able to drop it off and forget about it.

So not to change the subject or anything, but the last two “Monday Round Ups” have featured some interesting helmet stats/info, and no dedicated articles? Poor facts being tucked away and hidden under a false banner of news thats happening 3000 miles away. Come on now.

Back on the susposed subject, I got a garage full of bikes and I’d sign up for a citibank bike. I could ride around and get sign up for a refi at the same time.

Seriously though I like the idea, I could perhaps (not that I would) ditch a bike or two in the stable if we had a bike share here. It would be alot easier and less of a hassle than my folder, which granted is doable, but it’s a pain in the butt reguardless of what brand you get.

Though I’m sure the stations would block fire truck access to the Tram.

The term “poor” was a refernece to not the quality of the facts, but to the sad shape of such little exposure and or discussion of said facts.

The magizine article in particular was very good and interesting, and though I understand that it was published on another site that would likely have issues with a republish, it’s this type of discussion that needs to be done everywhere in the cycling community.

Perhaps a trip oversea’s will inspire a more meaningful post on the subject?

And sadly I was slightly mistaken thinking the investagative article was last week (boy how times flies).

“I represent the majority of New Yorkers… and New Yorkers are appalled that we can’t shoot hippies from our luxury apartment balconies for the benefit of society… because the TOTALITARIANS in charge won’t allow us this freedom!”

Not sure if this was mentioned: WSJ is owned by News Corp = Rupert Murdoch. Like Fox News, the WSJ will say whatever they think will get people to think that their freedom is being “begrimed.” I couldn’t get through the video.